Study for Children under a Red Umbrella, 1863–65, black chalk and pencil, Gift of Henry M. Marx in memory of Agnes Mosler Marx, 1976.533

Verbal Description

Hello, my name is John Hedges. I am a Gallery Attendant at the museum. I will be reading the verbal description of Study for Children under a Red Umbrella, which appears in Henry Mosler Behind the Scenes: In Celebration of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial.

Study for Children under a Red Umbrella from 1863-65 is in black chalk and pencil. It was a gift of Henry M. Marx in memory of Agnes Mosler Marx. The accession number is 1976.533

Mosler’s drawing, Study for Children under a Red Umbrella, is portrait-oriented and measures 24 and 1/8 inches by 21 and 5/16 inches. The subject of this picture is three children sharing an umbrella. The central figure is older than the two other children. She is wearing a calf-length, long-sleeved dress with a rounded neckline. Her hair is pulled back and tucked under a bonnet. She holds the umbrella, tilted slightly to the left, midway up the handle. To the left of her is a younger girl. She also wears a calf-length dress; however, hers has short puffed sleeves and what appears to be smocking at the chest. She has shoulder-length hair pulled away from her face. In her right hand, she holds up the skirt of her dress, and her left hand tucks through the arm of the older girl. To the right of the central figure is a young boy. He wears a hat that appears to have ear flaps tied out of the way. He is wearing a short jacket and pants. He is carrying three to four books of varying sizes. Because he turns towards the older girl, the viewer only sees him in profile.

Label Text

Hello, my name is John Hedges. I am a Gallery Attendant at the museum. I will be reading the label for Study for Children under a Red Umbrella, which appears in Henry Mosler Behind the Scenes: In Celebration of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial.

Study for Children under a Red Umbrella from 1863-65 is in black chalk and pencil. It was a gift of Henry M. Marx in memory of Agnes Mosler Marx. The accession number is 1976.533

This large drawing with crisp lines is a study for the only surviving genre painting from Mosler’s period of study at the academy in Düsseldorf, Germany. As Düsseldorf was famous for carefully staged paintings depicting incidents of daily life, it is unsurprising that Mosler followed this path. Here we see three children caught in a shower on their way home from school. The drawing is more light-hearted than the final painting, for which he embellished the storytelling details. The older girl at the center of the painting looks out at us somberly and carries a satchel with books and a slate, while the tattered umbrella indicates their social class. Yet, the effects of damp weather, the light penetrating the umbrella, and the shadows the umbrella casts were Mosler’s great preoccupations.

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